I've been feeling really compressed lately. My schedule feels like it's been overtaken with appointments, commitments, and other assorted things that are vying for my time. That is also coupled with my cancer treatments, which have made me pretty tired. So it's taken a lot of effort to try to find my center and balance. This morning I really lost it. Part of it was the jackhammers that were serenading us with their constant din (not to mention the "backing up" chorus that was also part of what I've termed the construction ballet). Everything felt compressed and tight and overwhelming. It took me a long time to regain my focus and do the work that needed to be done. Throughout all of that I tried to honor the energy and focus that I had (which I started to regain after a while).

I've been taking a Mindfulness course with Leo Babauta. Every weekday morning I practice with watching videos. This week I've been working on my morning routine. Most mornings I feel like have a lot of things that need my attention. Email messages, social media replies that might have arrived overnight, systems that need updates, and much, much more. It feels daunting. I've made an agreement with myself that I won't touch social media until after 9am, but on mornings when I sleep in that means that I'm not spending as much time away from social media as I should. It also adds to the compressed feeling of a morning that has less time in it in order to do the things that need doing.

This is where decluttering comes into play. I've been noticing what is part of my routine and trying to reduce as many of the commitments as I possibly can. This not only manifests in me saying "not right now" to a number of things, but it also means pulling away other distractions. I'm finding more and more that actual "stuff" in our living space can take my "psychic energy", as David Allen puts it. Just looking at things like unfinished commitments can be a drain (or even things like games that will never be played, books that haven't been read, and so on). I've been practicing with reducing as much of that. It's a slow process, and one that will take noticing subtle triggers, but if I'm going to decompress it's something that's necessary.

It's all about being honest with myself about what I can do, what I should do, and what needs to be done. This morning I failed to do that and it cost me with lost time and a large amount of mental anguish. That's not something I want to repeat, so I'll need to refocus myself and work towards a decompressed state.